Packaging company Albéa launches European plants

Cosmetics packaging specialist Albéa Group has invested almost 30 million euros ($41 million) to consolidate its manufacturing into two sizeable new production facilities in France and Italy.

Further afield, the plastic and laminate tubes specialist based in Gennevilliers, near Paris, is planning to open a new production facility in Brazil where it will achieve double digit growth, according to the firm's CEO François Luscan.

The group has spent around 22 million euros to merge its operations at St. Menéhould and Vienne Le Chateau in western France together in the new 23,000 square meters Argonne tube complex in St. Menéhould, which started up in 2013.

The new facility includes four primary production areas: caps, laminate tubes, small diameter plastic tubes, and premium plastic tubes. With a 600-strong workforce, it will be one of the biggest tube producers worldwide, turning out up to 1 billion tubes and caps a year.

In Italy, Albéa is investing a further 6 million euros to replace its two production units at Verderio and Imbersago near Milan with a 13,000-square-meter mascara and lip gloss applicators plant with a 3,000 square meters warehouse in nearby Bottanuco.

Bottanuco, to open this year, includes injection molding, extrusion and blow molding along with mold making and tube decoration all integrated on the same site.

Albéa's tube business, already accounting for a third of the firm's 1.09 billion euro turnover, is expected to grow at an annual rate of more than 10 percent.

In 2013, the company invested between 8-9 percent of its sales and expects to do the same again worldwide this year, said Luscan. Albéa plans to continue its global investment strategy to further reduce the time-to-market for its customers with more plants.